


Shuffling Around

by Nymora



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Shuffle Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-18
Updated: 2013-06-18
Packaged: 2017-12-15 10:20:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nymora/pseuds/Nymora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>10 linked-if-you-squint-at-it-right Darcy/Clint drabbles, inspired by the Shuffle Challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shuffling Around

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is what happens when you combine writer's block, a burning desire to actually finish something, and an off-the-wall music collection. Unbeta'd, though I did a quick sweep after to check for spelling and grammar errors. My first Avengers fic posted directly on here, so many apologies for any errors, technical or otherwise.
> 
> Shuffle Challenge Rules  
> 1\. Pick a fandom/couple/crossover you like.  
> 2\. Turn on your music player and put it on random (aka: shuffle).  
> 3\. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it ends.  
> 4\. No lingering afterwards. No cheating.  
> 5\. Do 10 of these and post them.

**1\. Supersystem - The Love Story**

They’re at a club, one so dark and loud that they can actually be incognito. The downside is, it’s dark and loud. Clint isn’t fond of either of those things, and he’s definitely not into this team-bonding shit when Nat and her Russian-American boyfriend are sucking face back at the Tower.

“To spring!” Jane shouts, downing her shot before sprawling over a grinning Thor.

“To starting fires!” Thor replies heartily, and _ugh_ , inside jokes.

Bruce says something poetic about spinning spheres, and Tony just laughs before taking his shot. Clint thinks it’s down to him, and hell if he knows what he’ll say, but then Jane’s assistant rises to her feet and actually _climbs onto the table_. Looking at her, the wide, easy grin on her face, hat falling down, he almost cracks a smile.

“To—” She gasps in laughter, almost falls over. “To Clint Barton, who saved my ass today. Long live the vibrating strings of his bow!”

The club is still dark and loud, but looking at her even gaze as she empties her glass, Clint’s thoughts start to become crystal clear.

 

**2\. Witches - 떳다! 그녀!! (There She Is!!)**

“Oh God, save me,” Clint gasps, grabbing Darcy’s arm as he races through the Tower’s lobby. She looks confused, but goes along with it, letting him chuck her into the elevator as he pushes buttons with another hand.

“Uh, care to explain?” she asks slowly.

“Fuck,” he curses, jamming the elevator’s close door button. Naturally, it doesn’t make the door close any faster.

“Elaboration, please?”

They go up two floors, then go back down five, cutting down a corridor. Darcy is getting increasingly out of breath, but still manages to gasp out, “Seriously, why are we in some sort of cartoon chase?”

They dodge into one last room, and the door opens—right onto a blonde woman, turning around and beaming at Clint. Luckily, Clint’s got a contingency plan, and her name is Darcy Lewis. They duck around the side and just as she turns the corner, he pulls Darcy close, resting his forehead against hers and breathing heavily.

“Oh! Um—you—sorry,” the blonde blurts, and ducks back around the corner.

“Sorry,” Clint pants once he hears the elevator ding. “She just—would not—take a hint.”

“Oh my God, are you _five_?”

“Four, and thanks.”

“Ass.”

 

**3\. N.E.R.D. - She Wants to Move**

“Baby, your ass is a spaceship I want to ride.”

Darcy curls her lip in derision. “Fascinating. Tell me again on what planet that translates to a successful pick-up?”

“Aw, c’mon, you love it,” Johnny Storm says with a big ol’ shit-eating grin. Which, cute, but he’s little league and she knows a _master_.

As if she summoned him, Clint ambles over, slinging a friendly (damn it) arm over her shoulders. “Hogging the pretty girls?”

“You know it,” Storm smirks.

“I was actually talking to Lewis,” Clint retorts, and Darcy hides a smile (and restrains the urge to comment on sick burns around the Human Torch, which is _hard_ ).

“Who, me, mister?” She bats her eyes at him.

“C’mon, let’s dance,” he says, and pulls her to the dance floor, and as they move together, Darcy isn’t sure if she needs a cool glass of water or if she wants it to last forever.

 

**4\. L.E.D. - Jaeger Final Attack**

“ _Techno-bots_?” Darcy eyes Clint incredulously.

“Yeah. Berlin,” he shrugs, as if that explains everything.

“And helium in the room.”

“Messed up comms like none other.”

“Yeah, pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“Well, not normally, but evil geniuses can do some weird things. Ask Nat if you don’t believe me.”

“Maybe I will,” Darcy sniffs, and picks up her phone to send off a quick text. Clint smirks as he waits. Two minutes later, Darcy actually drops her phone.

“ _They exploded when someone played dubstep_?”

“Dropping the bass is a dangerous thing, Lewis.”

“Whatever,” she mutters, and walks off. Clint sends a silent toast in the direction of Nat’s room as he steals the last thumbprint cookie off of the plate. It’s good to have allies.

 

**5\. Weezer - (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To**

The grill is going, and Clint is rocking his Slayer shirt and a pair of cutoffs. Visiting a summer camp for PR wasn’t actually that bad. Well, okay, the girls in the camp are pissed off because he managed to coach the boys into _slaughtering_ them in archery, but considering Darcy had finagled Steve into letting them into the pool first, it was totally fair, right?

Right now, though, he’s on a mission, and that mission is standing over by the grill with a beer and a giant floppy hat. It’s the work of a moment to snag her hand and pull her under a tree, cutting off the teenage boy trying his best to impress Darcy’s boobs.

“The traitor returns,” she mutters, and he grins.

“So, are you going to?”

She blinks up at him. “Are you confusing me with someone else?”

“Going to make a move,” he clarifies. “I mean, it’s about time, right? And I do want you to.”

Her jaw drops, and for a moment it seems like balls and sass aren’t going to win the day. Then she lifts herself up to plant a kiss on his mouth, and while Clint was prepared to say he didn’t have all night, now he thinks he might have an opening in his schedule.

 

**6\. Jonathan Coulton - The Princess Who Saved Herself**

“There was a castle by a waterfall, where a princess lived.” Darcy’s got a tiny person on her lap, and they appear to be reading a book together. Clint leans against the doorframe, listening in. “One day, she ate a whole cake!”

“Corrupting the superhero youth of America?” he asks dryly. The kid looks up, and her eyes are sky blue in her jewel-red face.

“Hey look,” says Darcy, “we just found someone to read Prince Philip’s part.”

The kid, obviously one of Xavier’s, giggles. “He should be the witch!”

“Fu—heck no,” Clint says, coming in to sit next to them. “I wanna be the dragon. I mean, he plays the bass. That’s awesome.”

“So long as I get to be the princess,” the girl declares.

 

**7\. Queen - Killer Queen**

“ _Caviar and cigarettes, well-versed in etiquette_ ,” Darcy sings, and Clint almost lets Nat hit him. Naturally, she isn’t shaken at all, though he knows she heard.

“Not helping, sweetheart,” he gasps as he dodges Nat’s fist, only to catch a glancing kick on his ribs.

“Oh, I know that, cupcake,” Darcy grins, and he gets a very bad feeling about the look on her face. “I’m just here to provide the proper soundtrack.” The smile is less playful than it is catlike. “ _Gunfire and agility, dynamite with a laser beam—_ ”

Nat takes him down with the thigh leap, and leaves him wheezing on the mat. As he struggles to get back up, she shimmies her way out of the ring and high-fives Darcy. His vision is blurred but he thinks he sees a flash of green exchange hands.

“You were right, Queen is pretty killer,” Nat deadpans as she leaves, and Clint winces.

 

**8\. The Fray - Over My Head**

So that’s it, then. They’re going to die with a whimper rather than a bang; apathy rather than destruction.

Funny how she never saw this coming.

San Francisco isn’t terribly scary at night, but it’s still a bit creepy and even with her training she feels pretty out of her depth. Maybe that’s just the confusion though, seeping into her bones like fog; the feeling that she’s been discarded, put into the category of past, of losing, of being dropped without a sound.

“Darce.”

All she can do is stare as he lopes toward her, coming in at the last possible fucking second, and it’s so ridiculous, so typical that she might as well hear him out. She lets him catch up, lets him put warm hands on her cold shoulders.

“I can’t,” he murmurs, so quietly it almost gets lost in the sounds of traffic and transit. “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I can’t let it go down like this. So here it is: either we fix this, or we blow it all to hell before we go back.”

Blinking up at him, Darcy knows she’s lost either way, but maybe they can help each other find their way back. It beats the hell out of the alternative.

 

**9\. Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict a Riot**

Sirens are wailing but Darcy’s ready, gun in hand and taser at her belt. The streets are scary, and being out here is pretty dumb, but she can’t not help.

“Taxi!” she calls out, waving her arm, but nobody wants to stop, they just want to get the hell out of town. Damn it, why does it always have to be New York? And shouldn’t people be less inclined to go nuts when crazy attacks?

She runs instead, directing people down into the subways, clearing them out of coffee shops. The comm link in her ear buzzes with words—incoming, hovercrafts, tentacles (and that’s a new one)—but it’s having a hard time competing with the angry jerkholes who try to get in her face.

Finally, she loses her patience, shooting a hole in the third coffee shop’s roof. “Look, either get underground or get armed, but either way, don’t just fucking sit here!” she screams, and it goes silent on both ends. “God, haven’t you people learned _anything_?”

Afterwards, when a riotous crowd of New Yorkers helps to take their city back, Clint finds her, drops a kiss on her head. “Dumbass,” he murmurs fondly, and she pinches his bicep.

 

**10\. Raffi - Bananaphone**

“Boop-be-do-boop-boop,” rings throughout the building, and everyone stops what they’re doing. The sound repeats, then fades into a jaunty piano-heavy tune.

“What... is that?” Bruce asks, and he sounds afraid of the answer.

“Guess Tony wanted a better phone ringer,” Clint shrugs.

“What?” Tony squeaks, as everyone turns to stare at him. Natasha shakes her head and leaves the room, while Steve actually looks pretty annoyed.

“That’s pretty cute and all, but what happens if someone important’s calling?” he lectures, and it’s serious enough that Darcy winces and burrows her face into Clint’s arm.

“It wasn’t me!”

“Tony, please change it back,” Steve sighs, and leaves. Bruce gives Tony a sympathetic shoulder-squeeze and follows, Tony trailing after them both protesting his innocence.

Only when they’re gone do Darcy and Clint high-five. “JARVIS, you are so full of a-peel,” she calls out.

“Thank you, Miss Lewis. Shall I deploy phase two immediately?” the AI asks.

“Give it about 36 hours,” Clint declares. “That’ll make the yellow phones more of a... surprise.”

“I love how you think,” Darcy purrs, cuddling close.


End file.
